Last week I wrote about the trouble I’ve had inserting myself into Chase’s playtime. I got some really great feedback from you guys and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.
I spent the last week really taking stock of Chase’s armory of toys and watching him as he played with all of them. Here’s something novel, by paying close attention you can learn things.
For example, I was well aware of the fact that Chase loves music, any toy that makes music is like magic to him. I truly noticed though that the music playing was distracting for him. He has several shape sorters that play a noise each time a shape is inserted, but instead of being an incentive to get the shapes into the container he just uses his finger to active the buttons. In my own mind I like to think that this shows some sign of him being a genius but I’m sure that’s just because he’s my kid and all.
In all honesty I haven’t done a lot of toy shopping for Chase. He is the only grandchild on both sides and has been ridiculously spoiled by Grandmas as well as Aunts and friends of ours. I would venture to say that I can count on one hand the number of toys that I myself have purchased.
In the past couple of weeks I have spent some time in the various toy departments of Target and Wal-Mart carefully selecting him some new toys. Before I probably would have classified these toys as boring because they are very simple and have no sound effects or flashing lights. However, it seems that without those distractions Chase has been much more inclined to play with them “as intended”.
I think there is clearly something to be said for some simple blocks and rings.